More shoppers are than ever are checking a store website before heading out to the physical location. Forrester Research predicted in its U.S. Online Retail Forecast, 2009 to 2014 report that the web would influence 48% of 2011 in-store sales.

3. Holiday shoppers research more online in a shaky economy

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Consumers use the web to research price and availability of products to purchase both online and in stores. According to the same 2011 NRF holiday survey referenced above, the average holiday shopper plans to do 36% of their shopping online – whether they’re comparing prices, researching products, or actually making a purchase. And data from Experian Hitwise indicates that website traffic increases in a troubled economy because buyers research purchases more carefully online to stretch shopping budgets.

4. Online is a major source of inspiration for gift shoppers

When beginning the hunt for holiday gift ideas this year, our own research – just released Halloween – reveals that 21% of U.S. shoppers browse retailer websites for inspiration while 29% peruse physical stores. And the younger the consumer, the larger the role the web plays. Download a free copy of the full report, Virtual Goods Mean Real Money This Holiday.5. Consumers planning to spend more on holiday shopping have an affinity for digital channels

Our research also found that shoppers intending to buy digital gifts – ebooks, music downloads, Facebook credits, and the like – are more likely to increase their gift budgets over 2010. While only 15% of all consumers plan to spend more this holiday season, a whopping 30% of digital gift shoppers will do so. Those purchasing digital goods also have bigger budgets—$440 on average, which is 40% more than their non-digital counterparts. The vast majority of digital gift spend will happen online.

Act fast to optimize your ecommerce site

With your site being more important than ever, what’s a multichannel marketer to do as the holiday countdown commences? It’s not too late to act on these tips:

Don’t emulate Target and have your website repeatedly crashed by unexpected traffic. Plan for major traffic spikes to ensure your site can handle the load. Simulate peak loads, monitor site responsiveness, and measure application behavior well in advance of Cyber Monday.

Speed up your site. Investigate using a content delivery network (CDN) like Akamai to speed up the delivery of rich content, including images and videos, to shoppers.

As many holiday shoppers will be researching online and on their smartphones both before and during their trips to the store, integrate the in-store experience with relevant, timely and personalized website and mobile app info.

Maximize the findability of your products online. By submitting a feed to Google Product Search, the Internet giant’s online shopping comparison engine, lesser known websites can improve exposure. Consider trying the Amazon Marketplace too. Or use Amazon Product Ads to place pay-per-click ads on category and product pages. Shoppers will see your ads when looking for similar products.

Social media has hit the mainstream and, while not a primary channel for discovery, is gaining in importance, particularly to Gen Y shoppers. Add social sharing to product pages to turn customers into sales channels. Resolve customer service issues on Facebook or Twitter to publicly display your customer service chops.

With cash-strapped shoppers carefully researching every purchase online before buying, follow the lead of sites like Amazon-owned toy site yoyo.com in making the shopping experience simple, efficient, and fun through gift finders, well-designed navigation, product filters and comparison tools, curated recommendations, and rich product details. At minimum, spruce up the product copy and images of your most popular holiday products, reinforce your value proposition, and make your shipping and return policies clear.

As head of consumer research with Elastic Path’s Research and Strategy division, Amanda Dhalla helps global enterprises like Google better understand consumer behavior in order to optimize their digital offerings. Amanda’s research has been cited by CNN, Econsultancy, Smart Money, and Internet Retailer.
A seasoned ecommerce professional with more than 14 years in the field, Amanda has hands-on experience marketing, merchandising and managing multimillion dollar online stores. Her areas of specialization range from market research, conversion optimization and analytics to traffic generation tactics such as social media, search engine optimization, and content marketing.